


Please, Turn a Light On When It Dies

by OhTigridia



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Dreams, Familial - Freeform, Gen, Introspection, Just a lot of thoughts on things scrambled into a fic, Wishes, hurt/comfort elements, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29571330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhTigridia/pseuds/OhTigridia
Summary: At some point, December seems to have latched onto his arm, their breathing now slow and in tandem with each other. For now it is quiet, and April wonders what August had wished for on the wrapper he seemed so enthusiastic about earlier.And, upon remembering he’d kept a single wrapper from earlier, what would April wish for?
Relationships: August & Mikage Hisoka & Utsuki Chikage, August & Utsuki Chikage
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Please, Turn a Light On When It Dies

_It’s cold,_ April thinks. An offhand remark to his own thoughts, watching the snow drift in flecks from the sky, piling up on the pavement. The snow underfoot leaks through the soles of his shoes, chilling his feet. It reminds him of a time almost ten years ago, when he couldn’t afford nice shoes or clothes. When he was freezing and lost, ran off into the night, and went bumping into some espionage tainted soul who was too gentle for his own good. 

He wonders why the snow always reminds him of August, as he walks the distance from the car to the sweet shop. He thinks he’s too warm a person to associate with the cold, but it’s more the way his warmth had saved him from the bitterness. He watches families pass as he goes, wondering of things. Perhaps he was once a rough kid who ran from home in a fit of desperation, but that act itself was what had bought him a new home. Even if it isn’t so conventional, there are times when even _their_ life feels more like normalcy than the one he had fled.

There is a chime as he pushes the door to, stamping slush onto the mat on the shop floor. He scrunches his nose from the scent of sugar, removing his coat as warmth envelopes him. Simple as some standard person’s evening routine, April’s shoulders relax as he comes to pick up his family from work. Simple as stopping by a family business, it is easy to forget this whole thing is just a cover up when he walks over to the desk and sees August, looking more like himself than he ever does on missions.

“Welcome back, April!” August says, his smile persistent as ever, looking up at him with fond affection. He speaks as if welcoming him home. Back into the candied glow of the sweet shop.

“How was work?” August asks, as family should. There is no acknowledgment of what such work actually hides.

“Same old,” April replies. “How about you?”

A simple back and forth. They talk about normal things. The normal people that August met today. Normal children and adults alike, who called to Misha to engage in reels of meaningless chatter. The sleepyheaded youngest just sleeps through all conversation. His head resting on the counter, while August strokes through his hair. The same old scenes they are used to — a family of three, converging at the oldest’s precious sweet shop. It is one of the things in their life that takes the least amount of thought. 

“Oh April, did I tell you what our recent most popular confection is?” 

“You didn’t.”

“Oooh really?” His eyes light up with an enthusiasm April finds hard to match when it comes to sweets, but finds far too winsome to shut down regardless.

“Look, April. If you write a wish on the wrapper of the cookie, it will come true!” He seems impressed with himself, but April knows it’s surely just another trick August came up with to make the children feel special. April doesn’t know if it’s moral to lie to children, but he’s sure that August isn’t the first to come up with something similar to get a cheap smile.

“What will you write?” August asks. He passes him a glossy gel pen, grinning up at him with expectation. 

“Isn’t there a jinx that wishes don’t come true if you tell another person?”

“Hmmm, well I suppose if that’s how you want to do it...” He pouts, childish under his years. 

“Though do write _something_ , even if you’re too embarrassed to tell me! I know what you’re like!” He laughs to himself as always.

April rolls his eyes, though deep down, he is glad August decides to press him no further. He cannot explain why, but April wants to put some thought into the wish. Whilst he’ll say he doesn’t fall for August’s tricks as surely a child would, there is a part of him that finds it important. Something in him nags that he doesn’t want to waste this wish.

It’s not like any of them had the privilege to indulge in such games when they were children, anyway. 

—

They drive home as snow falls, and melts on the windshield. It does not stick, yet the oldest takes a certain amount of joy from it. 

April never understands why August loves the world so deeply, not with all he’s known. August has endured the organisation’s hell almost a decade longer than himself and December. He’s treasured by them, and through that, collected years of trauma. He should be merciless, and yet he finds beauty in the delicacy of snowfall. He admires the changing colour of the sky, and listening to April’s blrief knowledge of constellations. He smiles at the prettiness of dust that shifts through margins of sunsetlight in their hideout, and April doesn’t understand why.

How, when it despises you, can you still love the world? How can you still have a heart full of sympathy, when all sympathy is beaten out of you? April doesn’t understand why August has hope for anything like wishes on cookie wrappers, and yet, he does. Unquestionably so.

Perhaps that is what makes August so special.

Maybe April wants to protect that innocent part of him just a little bit. 

—

They cook dinner. It is burnt, and August laughs around his fork as he eats. He says it tastes like home, and April doesn’t argue. 

His face only falls when they work after dinner, getting ready for tomorrow before bed. April works on some spreadsheets he’s been tasked with, whilst August goes to finish the last of the mission plans. He’s working on documents and plans that reap the possible tolling of their own deaths — the pressure of perfection, he always takes alone. 

In walls that are cold aside from the warmth of family, they cannot escape the morbid reality of their own lives. They can only distract from it for a while before it returns to haunt them. Anxiety latching to August’s features, his face only ever seems to fall while noting floor plans and equipment. Often, he ends up working at things until he’s squinting in the dark at his laptop screen.

When April finishes what he’s tasked with, he thinks to pull August away from his laptop too. He’s not great at being comforting, but he’s grown tired of watching August gnaw at his fingers. 

“August…” 

Despite the calling of his name, he continues to stare blankly at the screen. No light registers within his eyes.

“August.” He speaks firmer.

“Ah,” August blinks. “....Sorry…”

“No need to apologise…” April says quietly, taking note of how August trembles, and tries to hide it behind a smile. 

“I feel like you must have finished those plans by now right? You just keep reading them over and over until you zone out.”

August doesn’t reply verbally, but the exhaustion in his eyes is tell-tale enough.

“You should sleep now or you’ll pass out on the mission. We don’t need two sleepyheads, do we?” He speaks his dry kind of comforting humour. It sends a wistful smile to August’s face as he submits. 

“I suppose you’re right…” He says hesitantly, but takes April’s outstretched hand nonetheless.

“Sorry for zoning out like that, I don’t know what happened really,” August says, the false light sparkling within lilac irises again. His lips rise into a smile that seems more forced than anything. 

“I’ll be ok, April. Please don’t start worrying about me.”

April just bites his lip, and thinks. He thinks about August’s happiness -- the fleeting nature of it all. About when August is truly happy, and how he often pretends to be.

“I know you’ll be ok, August,” April speaks slowly. “You don’t need to pretend you’re _always_ ok though.”

August seems taken aback for a moment, but he laughs, warm and utterly forced. 

“I’ll bear it in mind…” 

He releases his hand from April’s, though his fingers linger for a moment too long as they slip away. There is a hidden flash of sadness in his eyes, that is gone as quickly as it came. He turns toward the bed, face away from April’s.

“Goodnight April.” 

“...Goodnight August.”

The evening dies into night.

  
  


April doesn’t sleep immediately. Even if he tried, he wouldn’t anyway, but tonight he finds himself thinking. 

He shuts his eyes, and finds himself a child again. The one who’d stare through the windows at night, and pray to live among the stars. It’s been a long time since he spoke to that boy, but he finds himself wanting to reason with him. After all, April knew what the boy wanted. What the reality of his dream of becoming an astronaut was.

_To escape._

That was all the boy wanted, and the stars seemed far enough. It was his secret world -- sitting with a torch on, reading the picture book pages at night alone. The shadows gathered so thickly that he could barely see the words, but the stars... The stars still shone in his artificial moonlight, little flecks of hope, in an otherwise hopeless life. 

He’d told August one time when he’d asked. When they were not so close, just more or less comrades, hung together by fate. August had asked what he wanted to do with his life, and April, embarrassed, had admitted his fascination with space. August had laughed, not out of cruelty, but genuine interest. 

“Space huh?” 

“Yeah….”

“I think that’s a good dream…”

It had turned into something of a tradition to lie on the roof after missions, just staring off into space. Traffic roared in the streets below, echoing noise upward, yet they never felt a part of it. Citylight touched their skin in blue and purple hues, but the world didn’t seem to matter if they looked far enough away from it.

“So, shall we go visit the moon one day?” August asked, lying on his back as he stared up at the full moon.

“It’s impossible,” April replied, which caused August to turn his head, and smile wistfully. 

“Maybe, but… I don’t think you should lose sight of your dreams, no matter how impossible they may seem.”

Now, April wonders if he’s right. He opens his eyes, seeing nothing but the ceiling. It’s beams low, just hanging in the lack of light, cheap four walls that slowly become part of them. Eating away at them, in a sense.

On the other side of him, August fell into a light sleep, his posture rigid enough to say he never seems to relax. 

Even when they’d first met, August always talked of dreams. From wishes on stars, to jinxes of bad luck, and how to avoid them. In the sweet shop, he listens intently to the children’s dreams, and encourages them to make something of it. It’s similar to what he had done for himself and December, except this time at least he’s nurturing dreams more realistic to their dreamer. After all, there was nothing April, nor December or even August could be except the organisation’s precious agents.

Maybe all along, August had been looking for an escape too. Somewhere his mind drifts to, that isn’t rooted in the organisation’s hold over him. Even when he played directly into their hands, maybe he wanted to pretend for a moment, that there was a chance for them to become astronauts, or whatever else August himself had dreamed of as a child. 

_...Had he ever even had a dream of his own?_ April wouldn’t know if he ever even had that privilege. If he had, he’d never shared it.

It seems since he’s known him, August only dreams of nightmares. Wakes up screaming in the night, crying and gasping at some invisible threat. Despite that, he likes to pretend he’s fine. Swallow it down, and pretend nothing at all happened.

At least tonight, for the moment he lies still. At some point, December seems to have latched onto his arm, their breathing now slow and in tandem with each other. For now it is quiet, and April wonders what August had wished for on the wrapper he seemed so enthusiastic about earlier. 

And, upon remembering he’d kept a single wrapper from earlier, what would April wish for?

April watches his family sleep, and thinks of his own life, in parallel to theirs. He notices a pale beam of moonlight stipple through a crack in the curtains, and ponders it. He thinks of that child -- how he’d obsess over moonlight just like that, except it fell in floorboards more rotten than these. The moon always sings a certain loneliness, but perhaps instead, he’d like to see it with them, in a world more quiet than this one.

When April pictures happiness, he always pictures the three of them, somewhere peaceful. The skies are still an inky dark, but the moonlight is painted above them. By his side, his family’s hair sways slow in the night breeze. Their shoulders are down, faces relaxed just for once. There is nothing, but silence, and the moonlight.

Carefully, April brushes aside the bed sheets. He checks he hasn’t awoken them, (or rather August, for the other would surely sleep either way) and turns to the desk. Squinting in the darkness, April uses the light of a small torch to see what he writes as he does. 

In August’s blotchy pen ink, April writes:

“To always be beside family.”


End file.
